Ben Phalan
benphalan.bsky.social
Ben Phalan
@benphalan.bsky.social
Bird conservation, mostly vegan, he/him. Seeking a better world for all people & the other species with whom we share the planet
Reposted by Ben Phalan
Wrote a lot of words on SOYBEANS!🫛 I love having this job so much lol

America should have greater ambitions for the soybean—treating it not just as slop for the world’s abused livestock, but as a miracle technology with the potential to reshape world diets for the better
www.vox.com/future-perfe...
How soybeans took over America — and the world
This technology could feed a world of 10 billion. We’re squandering it, and the trade war with China could make it worse.
www.vox.com
October 16, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Reposted by Ben Phalan
Agriculture drives more biodiversity loss than any other sector, with ruminant meat causing extinction risks ~340× higher than grains by mass and ~100× higher than legumes both by mass and when adjusted for protein.
September 13, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Nice thread on the value of @inaturalist.bsky.social for sharing and preserving observations of biodiversity that might otherwise never have seen the light of day again
Some validation for my recent efforts in uploading some old images of unidentified species to @inaturalist.bsky.social – turns out I photographed an undescribed poison-dart frog in the Western Amazon 18 years ago 🌎 🧪🐸🪶 #ornithology #herpetology 🧵1/21
September 5, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Reposted by Ben Phalan
This, by @jasonhickel.bsky.social, is the clearest explanation I have yet read of why the US and UK governments continue to support the Israeli government, regardless of its great crimes against humanity.
jasonhickel.substack.com/p/why-does-t...
Why does the US support Israel's crimes?
Why does the US support Israel’s genocidal crimes against the Palestinian people, even in the face of overwhelming international condemnation, at massive expense, and to the point of totally debasing ...
jasonhickel.substack.com
August 29, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Ben Phalan
FACTCHECK: We asked dozens of scientists to review Trump's climate report, being used to justify major policy rollbacks.

They found "more than 100" false or misleading claims.

Click through to read them all:

interactive.carbonbrief.org/doe-factchec...
August 15, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Reposted by Ben Phalan
'Cows just replaced the methane from wild bison'

Not even close.

At their peak, wild ruminants incl. bison emitted ~15 Tg CH₄/yr

Today’s 4+ billion farmed ruminants emit over 100 Tg CH₄/yr

That’s nearly 7x more methane.

essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/...
Global Methane Budget 2000–2020
Abstract. Understanding and quantifying the global methane (CH4) budget is important for assessing realistic pathways to mitigate climate change. CH4 is the second most important human-influenced gree...
essd.copernicus.org
July 30, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Ben Phalan
Six 6️⃣ tips on communicating effectively with politicians.

From @jacquelyngill.bsky.social some time ago.
July 3, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Ben Phalan
Perhaps gauche to quote your own book, but I think CROSSINGS's section on the Roadless Rule gets at something fundamental: that to designate places as roadless is to assert that our national forests have value—for wildlife, for water, for slow recreation—beyond mere timber extraction. #roadecology
June 24, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Reposted by Ben Phalan
This plan is utterly insane and would cause catastrophic environmental degradation and loss of outdoor opportunities throughout the west — it would accelerate the decline of forests and wildlife, and seriously restrict hiking, camping, fishing, birding, hunting, etc.
June 16, 2025 at 3:25 AM
Reposted by Ben Phalan
We've just launched AviList! - the new unified global taxonomic checklist for the world's birds, developed through the Working Group on Avian Classification, including BirdLife, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, IOC and others @birdlifeglobal.bsky.social @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social www.avilist.org
June 11, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Ben Phalan
You've been told that "tech won't save us." But the opposite is just as true. @garrettbroad.bsky.social and I wrote about the dangerous appeal of "nature-based solutionism," or the idea that natural solutions to complex problems will save us. They won't.

newrepublic.com/article/1933...
The Flawed Ideology That Unites Grass-Fed Beef Fans and Anti-Vaxxers
From RFK Jr. to Hollywood A-listers and Democratic senators, people across the political spectrum are jumping onto the slippery slope of nature-based solutionism.
newrepublic.com
March 31, 2025 at 12:35 PM
I got to know Accra, Ghana well when I did research there almost two decades ago. Please consider helping those affected by the devastating Kantamanto fire, here: donorbox.org/kantamanto-f...
Fire Relief for Our Beloved Kantamanto | The OR Foundation Ltd. (Powered by Donorbox)
DONATIONS through January 5th WILL BE MATCHED!Our beloved Kantamanto has burned. On January 1st, 2025, Kantamanto Secondhand Clothing Market in Accra, Ghana, the largest secondhand market in the world...
donorbox.org
January 7, 2025 at 2:59 PM